12.27.2008

12.25.2008

bought myself an iphone on the eve, couldnt sleep, woke up broken out, fittled with phone, lunch with zach and then off to bill cone's (sally's dad) for the only form of celebration i partake in this time of the year.

then: late to bed but early to rise for my 2nd fave day of mall shopping (2nd only to the day after t-giving, which i also dont celebrate) i live for the crazy (prob what i like about nyc...)

then: no calif., but hoping to make this band of horses show and then create some good nye plans.

12.18.2008

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

In the world of magazine internships, you usually get as much from the experience as you put in. No one is going to baby to you, so the best advice I can give you is to constantly pitch to your strengths (especially to Nick, who is your greatest alley and always there to help). I'm sure you'll learn a lot and do a lot of little tasks along the way, but walking away with even just one story or review makes it all worthwhile.

--If you don't have Excel, try to get it now. You'll need it to do the CD spreadsheeting. --Conquer the Google Reader hourly. Not only is it good for the site, its good to know what's happening in the news. It makes you look smart, and stuff. Use that smartness to pitch Austin stories about things you like so you don't spend 2 hours trying to write a story about some obscure band you hate. If you pitch him enough stories every morning (before 10AM), you will probably get to write about things you like everyday, thus making you happy.--Learn how to work the phone. I never did, and always felt bad when it rang and no one else was around. --Read some back issues of Paste. Or, you know, all of them. It's a small thing that will inevitably prove pretty helpful. Promise.--If the line is really long at the PO, go ahead and try asking someone at the desk if you can skip it and just get the overflow. Some people say no, but when they say yes it saves you a lot of standing around time.--Mocha Match has the best muffins ever, and they heat them up for you. Cha-ching!--Whenever you're comfortable, ask one of the editors you admire out to lunch to pick their brain. I've done this at every magazine I've ever worked at, and one time it even changed my life. Thats no joke. --Always volunteer to transcribe. Transcribing is one of those things people assume is horrible, that actually isn't that bad. And guess what? You get to covertly learn the staff's interviewing techniques, thus gaining knowledge. And you know what they say about knowledge....(power, people. It's power).--Many of you probably aren't from here, which is cool. Now you get to explore a new city! Warning: Atlanta is super lame. Make friends with someone with good taste and a car and have them take you to Athens. When you arrive, request (in this order): Agora, Clocked, 40 Watt. Full disclosure: Atlanta isn't that lame. I'm just from Athens.--Aim to do at least one "Catching Up With..." and one "Band of the Week" for the web before you leave.--Ask Jeremy thousands of questions everyday. Talk to him about "Pushing Daisies" and check out his web stories, they are amazing. He's pretty much the nicest person alive and he will be able to get you through anything. --Just go ahead and take the trash out every Friday. Don't make Rachael nag you, she has better things to do (read her web postings, they are hilarious!)--Criminal Records has $1 vinyl. Its good. But chances are I take the good stuff every week. But who knows, maybe you have better taste than me? Either way, I'm outta here Feb. 1, so have at it!

Finally, enjoy yourself! Try to make Austin read Harry Potter, go talk to Kevin whenever you are stressed (his smile is an insta-pick up), chat up Nick when you are hungry (dude seriously knows where all the good food is), go see Steve's band (Attractive 80's Women) and do lots of trivia. Go to ED2010 events and try not to get down about the state of the magazine industry. There is room for everyone, if you believe.

[image] Not being a fan of Xmas records in general (the staple Sinatra one withstanding—admit it, you own it too, or you should) and being basically a person with a heart made of heavy metal, I have to say overall this record is maybe most probably horrible. Just terrible. In the worst way. Like fancy shoes with tube socks, it boasts a rather incredible roster of Metal Giants and some probably best-forgotten also-rans. On a positive note, Vinny Appice makes an appearance on drums more than once, Dave Grohl and Lemmy and Billy Gibbons rock out in a beautifully nasty way on “Run Rudolph Run,” the Chuck Berry classic. The record may be worth track four, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” boasting half the second most famous line-up of Black Sabbath (We know them now as “Heaven and Hell”). In fact, Mrs. Dio is Executive Producer of this so I am going to a lame version of hell for the slagging, but, do yourself a holiday favor and enjoy the absurdity of your parents’ lame-ass records and sneak out back for a smoke. The eggnog here is just rotten and please, if you decide to go this one alone anyway, beware the Tommy Shaw slaughter of “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” I hate myself more than ever now in a special heavy metal way after that one and you know, buy a Jesu (brutal-noisy-progressive metal pioneers) record instead this season. It’ll scare Ma like Alice Cooper scares golf courses. Also beware, this product is non-kosher (no Hanukkah songs here…wtf?)////blah. RA—intern.

12.09.2008

The land comprising the city of Atlanta was once an American Indian village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was sold by the Cherokee and Creeks to white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur. Soon, an informal trading post sprang up as the first white settlement, called Thrashersville.

as you well know, i am obsessed with the oscars. mostly, i love it when people im really rooting for but dont think will win end up pulling it off. prob the biggest moment in my lifetime was adrian brody winning. truly amazing. and i just realized that the academy has an official page on youtube with a ton of acceptance speeches. fuck the red carpet and the comedians and all that bull, i love a good speech.

its all about my boys on the blog these days...but both ryan and shaun recently got new sites. its pretty badass too, tons of great photos and videos and stuff on all his work with red bull and MTV. what a hot commodity. check it: http://www.shaunwhite.com

12.08.2008

eh, so-so. i think the paste reviewer liked it more than me but i liked what he had to say. (here is what he had to say):

Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl [Scribner]By Austin L. Ray

Cocoa Puffs fiend successfully tackles long-form fiction

Pop-culture addict Chuck Klosterman has polarized readers and critics with the unique brand of observational writing in his nonfiction books. His autobiographical glam-metal opus Fargo Rock City (2001) explored the effect of hair bands on a young man growing up in rural North Dakota. The 18 essays contained in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs (2003)—arguably his most popular book—cover The Sims, Billy Joel, Saved by the Bell, evangelical Christianity and much else. Killing Yourself to Live (2005) is a road-trip book about places where rock stars died, but also an examination of three girlfriends from Klosterman’s past and their impact on his life. And Chuck Klosterman IV (2006) is mainly a collection of previously published articles and columns.Klosterman’s first novel, Downtown Owl, is set in the early ’80s and follows three main characters: Mitch, Julia and Horace—respectively, a smart, semi-secure high-school football player; a booze-loving 23-year-old teacher fresh out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and an elderly widower with a keen eye for truth and an affinity for coffee. We’re once again in small-town North Dakota, this time the fictional town of Owl. (Klosterman grew up on a farm in Wyndmere, N.D., and worked as a newspaper reporter in Fargo.)

Downtown Owl reads like a set of hyper-interesting short stories, and not only because it’s divided among the three major characters (who trade off chapters). Klosterman is adept at thinking up bizarre, somehow plausible scenarios that hook readers while pushing the story along. From a massive, $22,000 secret to a random-kissing drunkard to a legendary man who blew away two U.S. marshals with a rifle, Downtown Owl teems with vignettes, asides and secondary characters. They’re all carried along by unique literary devices Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers would be proud to employ, and Klosterman’s prose is a joy to read.

Everybody knows everything about everyone in Owl. Out-of-the-ordinary occurrences go down there just as they do anywhere else and, more often than not, each connects back somehow to our three characters. Meanwhile, Klosterman captures the hilarious and illogical essence of being a teenager while reveling in contradiction, cliché and absolutes, three of his favorite writing toys. Or, to put it in more Klostermaniacal language, all the characters of Downtown Owl become happier and sadder at the same time with the knowledge they have of each other. Along the way, they teach us that clichés are often based on fact (though not always), which is something everyone knows—except when they don’t. Klosterman’s style is as maddening to its detractors as it is intriguing to his followers; it wholly invokes Walt Whitman’s line, “Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Downtown Owl is the Seinfeld of novels. It’s a book about nothing. The characters are quirky, funny, interesting and, sometimes, just as loathsome as Jerry and the gang. Conflicts arise, but rarely are they resolved or even monstrously consequential. Mitch hates his football coach. Mitch’s football coach hates his own life. Julia gets drunk, pining for a man she’ll never have. Horace drinks coffee with his friends and misses his dead wife. The rumor mill gets two students into a fight, but fisticuffs never occur. A yawnfest? Hardly. Like Seinfeld, the novel is wildly entertaining. Seemingly unimportant scenes build an intricate backdrop for an ending where the slate is essentially wiped clean.

Klosterman’s transition to the novel form is pretty seamless overall, peppered with hilarious dialogue, solid character development and those unorthodox literary devices. (In an early chapter, instead of high schoolers displaying their thoughts through a perfunctory conversation, Klosterman breaks them down into 22 individual entries, each its own specific desire or thought from a specific student at that specific moment. Samples: “Sleeping” and “that one eighth grader with the insane tits.”) And while his characters don’t obsess over pop culture as Klosterman has in past works, he still uses plenty of era-appropriate musical touchstones (ZZ Top, Karen Carpenter, Van Halen, etc.) in humorous music-dork fashion.

As for Mitch, Julia and Horace—they learn a few things about themselves and those around them. As small-town tension escalates, things feel predictable at first, but they finish unpredictably. Indeed, by story’s end, downtown Owl—which never was the same—never will be again.

everyone i know is obsessed with this show, and i've finally sat down to watch it. i'm on the 4th episode and so far i really dont like it or get the big deal. but im going to watch the whole first season (which is already over) to see if it gets better. it does have a bit of an addictive quality. couldnt see trying to read the books though. (and yes, i know about 'PD' being cancelled but i'm not yet ready to discuss. and im still holding out hope)

12.04.2008

here is what RS says about the noms (well, heres a small part of what they say that i agree/care about): Among the biggest snubs is the lack of Santogold in the Best New Artist category, Brian Eno’s absence among the Producers of the Year (despite Coldplay’s seven nominations) and a lone nomination for M.I.A. (though the nomination for Record of the Year for “Paper Planes” ties Justice’s nod for their MGMT remix for weirdest mention). We’ll find out who wins, who goes home empty-handed and how the Grammys can possible alienate even more people when the 51st annual ceremony takes place in February.